Alabama home to 7th-largest decrease in percent of adults employed since 2007

A smaller share of Alabama's adults are employed now, as compared with six years ago.

In 2013, about 71 percent of adults age 25 to 54 were employed, according to an analysis conducted for the Pew Charitable Trusts' "Fiscal 50" project.

Six years earlier, an estimated 77 percent of those adults were employed. Put another way, the share of Alabama adults that are employed has fallen by six percentage points over the past six years.

Almost every state has seen a significant drop in share of adults working. On average nationwide, the share of adults employed fell by four percentage points over those six years.

But Alabama's decline is greater than the national average. And only six other states saw larger drops.

Three states hit hard by the housing bubble -- Arizona, Nevada, and Florida -- saw larger declines than Alabama in this metric. New Mexico, Montana, and Delaware were the other states that saw larger drops.

Alabama's unemployment rate at the start of 2007 was just over 3 percent. In late 2009, the jobless rate peaked above 10 percent. As of March, the rate was basically at the midpoint of the peak and the valley, with a reading of 6.7 percent.

While the state's unemployment rate has come down, the economy supports fewer jobs. In 2007, Alabama's economy supported an average of more than 2 million jobs. In 2013, the average number of jobs was slightly more than 1.9 million.